False and Recovered Memories in the Laboratory and Clinic : A Review of Experimental and Clinical Evidence

Blocked and recovered memories of traumatic events have long been regarded as real phenomena by the mental health profession, our legal system, and the public at large. These phenomena originally were studied by Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud, and Freud’s (1896/1962) ‘‘Aetiology of Hysteria’’ is perhaps the best known early discussion of this topic. In this now famous 1896 address, Freud presented his ‘‘Seduction Theory’’ in which he argued that ‘‘hysteria’’ resulted from repressed memories of childhood sexual trauma. Freud further argued that bringing these memories into consciousness would lead to the alleviation of the hysterical symptom. Freud subsequently abandoned his seduction theory in favor of his theory of childhood sexual fantasy at a time when he was trying to develop a more general theory of psychopathology designed to account for disorders other than hysteria such as obsessive-compulsive neurosis (Freud, 1955) and schizophrenia. However, the concept of repressed memories of trauma continued to receive attention, particularly in the literature on wartime trauma. For example, Sargant and Slater (1941) described a World War II account of 1000 consecutive admissions to a neurological unit. Over 14% of the sample exhibited amnesia, with the severity of amnesia appearing to be associated with the severity of trauma (e.g., 35% of those exposed to severe stress exhibited significant amnesias). Retrieval of these memories of Address correspondence to David H. Gleaves, Department of Psychology, 230 Psychology Building, 4235 TAMU, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. E-mail: [email protected].